MISLAYING AN IDEA; OR A SLY INQUIRY.

OUR friend whom we must be allowed to introduce under the name of ZIGZAG, would be one of the best story-tellers in the world but for one trifling disqualification: he cannot tell his story. He starts with the best intentions, but is so severely afflicted with what we will call an associativeness of ideas. the first begetting a second, the second a third, and so on to the twentieth and the fiftieth, that, in the confusion, the original idea is mislaid. He purposes to describe to you the launch of the Trafalgar which he witnessed the other day; but before he has proceeded half way through his first sentence, he, by some strange process of thinking, is off to the Pyramids, back again to the British Museum, thence to a white-bait party at Greenwich, which reminds him of Voltaire, Julius Cæsar, and the Thames Tunnel, whence he emerges to appear at Naples, "Nova Zembla, or the Lord knows where !"

We met him the other day near the Duke of York's column. He was alone, walking fast, and laughing aloud. We stopped him and said, "Why, Zigzag, you are merry.”

"Merry, my dear fellow!" said he, speaking with considerable volubility, "merry! The most whimsical accident has just occurred to me that ever happened to mortal man, though it might have led to disagreeable consequences. I went to the Horse-guards to make a sly inquiry. There were a good many people about to see the guard relieved, though Lord knows it is not much of a sight. Upon that point, however, mine is hardly a fair opinion, for I hate sight-seeing. Why, I was in town on the day of the coronation, and though I had a peer's ticket for one of the best seats in the Abbey, the fees for seeing which are, or are soon to be, greatly reduced, as also at the Tower,--not that I think there is much worth seeing there except the armoury, which is far inferior to the collection at Malta, of which place Napoleon truly said, that to keep possession of it the governor need only to lock the gate and put the key into —"

“But, Zigzag, you have been to the Horse-guards to make a sly inquiry: go on."

"Ay, a sly inquiry, and sly for a good reason, for it was concerning a lady, the wife of a man I never saw, and the last man in the world, indeed, whom, under the circumstances, I should have desired to see. I had already referred to the army-list, which, though useful as far as it goes, as may be said of the Navy-list also, a very profitable publication, though as I am told, the most profitable book ever published is a Mrs. Somebody's cookery-book; not that I think much of cookery-books, not even Ude's, though French cookery is certainly the perfection of the art, and you'll not get a better dinner a la Française any where than at the Albion; in saying which I am borne out by the authority of Swallowmuns, the celebrated eater, who killed two of Bleaden's live turtles by merely admiring them. Bleaden,' said he, them 'ere is two uncommon fine turtles of your'n;' and the poor things knowing who he was, and foreseeing the consequence of his praise, died of fright -they knew it was all over with them; and it is a remarkable—” "But, Zigzag, about your inquiry?"

"Well, I was going to tell you. About six years ago I paid my ad

dresses to Lorina Aubrey, the pretty young widow, and fancied they were well received. She lived in a ready-furnished house in that most dismal of all streets, where every third house sports a hatchment; you know what street I mean-”

"Harley-street, of course. But go on."

"One morning I called as usual, and conceive what I must have felt when I was told that she had gone away, leaving no clue whatever to her whereabout. I searched all London over; but London is such a place! so enlarged! so improved! As an instance, look only at this park. A few years ago the enclosed part was a mere cow-field, with a long, straight ditch running down the middle of it, the canal so be praised in one of his letters by the Duke of Buckingham-I mean the poet, Sheffield Duke of Buckingham, who built old Buckingham House, which was pulled down to make way for the present palace, where the Queen arrived last night from Windsor, unquestionably the finest place we have to show in all England, a very fine map of which has just been published by Mogg. I intend to buy

"But about Lorina ?"

Well, as I was about to tell you, I lost sight of her for three years, when, one day, whom should I see coming out of Howell and James's with a beautiful French poodle at her side-just such a dog, now, as Edwin Landseer would delight to paint, and he has some very fine dogs of his own; but the finest dog I ever saw was brought over by Harry Seymour from Switzerland, where the Wallis's are going this summer, if summer it may be called, and just such another there was, as I find it recorded in the "Annual Register," an excellent book of reference which no library should be without; but, really, books do so multiply! Why, how many volumes, now, do you think-"

Now, pray, pray, my dear Zigzag, get on. You met coming out of Howell and James's-"

"Lorina herself! Well, we both of us looked rather foolish at first, and then we both burst out laughing. She said she had always entertained a great respect for me, and liked me as a friend-the civil way in which a woman intimates that she never cared a straw about you; but that, in fact, on the very morning upon which I called in dull, dingy Harley-street, which I never enter but it gives me a fit of the blue devils, which was the title of a very good farce, by poor George Colman, who getting out of a hackney-coach one night, gave the driver a shilling.

"This is a bad shilling, sir,' said Jarvey.

"Then it's all right,' said George, with his inimitable chuckle; "it's all right: your's is a bad coach.'

"But hackney-coaches have been greatly improved within these few years; and as to cabs, which are an importation from Paris, no longer the gay place it was when I-"

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Now, my dear Zigzag," get back to Lorina. On the very morning, when you called in dull, dingy Harley-street-"

"Lorina Aubrey married Captain O'Grummy, and immediately set off with him to Cheltenham, a pleasant place to pass a few weeks at in the summer; and if you are fond of a rubber at whist, a thing I don't myself care much about, though when I play I prefer the short game; for, considering that our days are numbered, long whist is too long for this life, which is of very unequal duration in different professions, for

it is computed that while painters-I don't mean house-painters, who when they once get withinside your doors, are not easily got out again, as I know to my great inconvenience; for at this moment, in my chambers in Albany, which were once occupied by no less celebrated a man than-"

"I really must pull you up once more. The widow Aubrey married Captain O'Grummy and immediately set off with him to Cheltenham. What then?"

"That's the point I was coming to. Soon afterwards she went with him to Ceylon, where his regiment was, and there they had remained for three years, up to the period when I met her. I requested permission to call upon her, but this she would not allow, alleging as her excuse the excessive jealousy of the captain, for to repeat her own words, he was as jealous as Othello-in my opinion, the finest of Shakspeare's tragedies, though some prefer " Macbeth," as was the case with a poor old acquaintance of mine, whom I met near this very spot, shortly after the accession of George IV. I asked him whether he had yet had the honour of dining with his Majesty. He rather sharply replied that he had not.

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How is that?' said I; 'you were a frequent guest at Carlton House.'

"The way of the world, my dear boy,' said he, the way of the world. His Majesty was then nothing more than Prince Regent; but now that he has got a lift he neglects his old friends'

"That was my last meeting with him; for, shortly after, he went to Russia; and the very best book of Russian travels I ever read—”

Stop, stop, stop! Mrs. O'Grummy would not allow you to call upon her on account of the jealousy of the captain. What followed?" "Lost sight of her for another three years; and, to say the truth, I thought no more about her than about the Emperor of China, whose insolence, duplicity, and bad faith, in the late transactions ought to be resented by this country, which though not so flourishing as it might be, yet compared with what it was in the reign of Edward III., for instance, whose Statute of Treasons is to this day considered by lawyers as the "

So then, there is an end of Lorina?"

"Not so: I was going to tell you. Four days ago, as I was going along Bruton-street,'a plain brown chariot drove past me at a rapid pace, -and the habit of furious driving seems to be on the increase, the consequence of which is that the accidents daily occurring, many more than are reported in the newspapers, which in consequence of the reduction of the stamp-duty upon them, are now-"

"But Lorina, Lorina!"

"I was coming to that. Well, in that carriage was Lorina, and alone! I resolved to find her out. I could not overtake the carriage, so I referred to the 'Court Guide.' No such a name as O'Grummy in it. Looked to the last Army List'-and mark! there is but one officer of that name in the service. There was my captain sure enough, and, luckily for me, with his regiment at Ceylon, the climate of which is, according to all accounts, delicious, and it is therefore too bad of Mrs. Smatter in her Five Weeks' Ramble over all parts of the inhabited World,' to assert that the climate-"

"Once more, my dear Zigzag, will you-?"

"True. I resolved to find out my once dear Lorina. The Horse-guards I thought to be the likeliest place for my purpose. But how to inquire about a lady there-the wife of an absent officer and a notoriously jealous man-without some danger of compromising her. I hit upon the mode. To the Horse-guards I went, and was directed to the proper office.

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Pray, sir,' said I to one of the clerks, the number of whom in all the government offices together, is, as I am credibly informed, very little short of "

"Zigzag!"

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Pray, sir,' said I, will you inform me of the present station'—(At this precise moment, a gentleman, the only person in the room besides the clerk, quitted it) of the th regiment?"

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"Ceylon, sir,' replied he.

"And now for my sly inquiry. I hesitated and said, ‘I—I—have received a parcel-that is, a packet of some importance, for Mrs. O'Grummy, and-and-I don't know-I wish to know howwhere-?"

"I put my hand into my coat-pocket, as if to indicate that I had the imaginary packet with me.

"The luckiest thing in the world, sir,' said the clerk: the captain is home on leave, and only this morning arrived in town. That was he who just left the room. Pray take a seat for two minutes; in that time he will be here again, and you can, if you please, give the packet for Mrs. O'Grummy to him?"

"My dear fellow," continued Zigzag, "only conceive! The man, of all others in the world, from whom it was important I should conceal my inquiry, to have arrived in England but a few hours before, and be present at the moment of my making it! Had he remained in the room but half-a-minute longer, or had I entered it but half-a-minute earlier! The thought of it threw me into a cold perspiration. I need not tell you I did not await the captain's return, but bounced out of the room, and flew down the stairs six at a time. Ha! ha! ha! what an escape!"

"It was indeed a singular accident, and, as it has turned out, a whimsical one."

READER.-And true?

NARRATOR. In the main point.

P*.

LITERATURE OF THE MONTH.

THE SPAS OF ENGLAND.*

THE curative influence of mineral waters has of late years become a subject of general investigation, and confidence in their medicative qualities has so much increased, that the sick, the halt, and the blind, flock to them in crowds. But hitherto it has not been, as in the last century, when Bath and Tunbridge Wells were the head quarters of fashionable invalids, our own mineral springs sufficed for their ailments. The English Spas appear to have been so completely forgotten, that their very names seemed to have passed into oblivion. Every person who was ill, or fancied himself so, having the means of travel at his command, must needs leave his home with all possible expedition, and seek some out-of-the-way place with some unpronounceable name, wherein to quaff a course of spa-waters of the proper fashionable nastiness. Then nothing was talked of, nothing written about of any interest to the rich patient, but "the Brunnens ;" and as this name grew more and more the rage, travelling carriages and steam-boats grew more in request, until the German spas became crowded with English invalids of all conditions and complexions. Here they drank the waters with the avidity of confirmed teetotallers, and lavished their money with the indifference of thoughtless prodigals, returning home at lastin a few cases, perhaps minus their real or imaginary complaints, and in most, minus a much heavier affair in the shape of British gold.

To this very prevalent hydrophobia, Dr. Granville contributed in no small measure by the publication of his clever work, "The Spas of Germany," wherein so attractive a picture was conveyed of the popular remedy as administered at several German towns and villages, that such as had held back in doubt, rushed eagerly to obtain the promised advantages, and such as had already drank the waters pretty freely, swallowed such huge draughts as astonished even the most euthusiastic of the native physicians, by whom the spa was recommended. Having pretty well succeeded in making water-butts of so many English stomachs, Dr. Granville, in a happy hour, bethought him of the mineral springs of England, and with the legend of King Bladud to afford him confidence, gave them all a careful and scientific investigation. The result is a work of a most useful and interesting character in which, with a few unimportant exceptions, it is clearly demonstrated that those celebrated foreign Brunnens are excelled in their curative character by a very great variety of waters to be met with in England.

The first division of "The Spas of England," containing the mineral waters found in the northern counties, was published a short time since, and obtained immediate attention from every person interested in the

The Spas of England and Principal Sea-bathing Places. By A. B. Granville, M,D., F.R.S., author of the "Spas of Germany," Midland and Southern Spas.